Monday, January 23, 2012

After posting the philodendron leaf piece and not being pleased with the top portion, I added some shading with Berol colored pencils to the ghost-quilted leaves. Then I appliqued some leaves at the top of one of the stalks. It's a scary process to alter an already quilted work, because it can't be removed. But it's not finished until I'm happy with it.

How to get started: pull out already cut strips left from other projects that will coordinate with the brown and pink. Choose some other strips just because I like them. Sew together to create strip-sets. Pin to design wall and take a look. Think and ask questions.

1. What do I like about them? Thin (about 1") strips going horizontally.
Slashes of red or wine or purple going vertically through these strip
sets, preferably at an angle. Maintain some control of colors--not total
random/chaos!

2. What do I NOT like about them? Wide strips. Challenge fabric in too large pieces. In fact, I plan to limit it to going vertically to help give some structure or continuity. I even found some kaleidoscope blocks in a box; hmmmm. I wonder about overlaying some of these half-circles. More later.

Thursday, January 19, 2012

I'm still making strip sets and looking at them. No pictures yet. Several participants are dyeing the challenge fabric, but I am leaning toward leaving that bright white background. Am enjoying the PINK. Leaving the white really makes the pink pop! Reminds me of a class I took one time with Marilyn Belford; we listed (and cut examples of) things/colors/shapes we liked, and then things/colors/shapes we hated. THEN we had to make a small fabric piece from each of the groups. Yep, you guessed it--pink was in the hated group, and I made some really neat pieces with a pink theme. Maybe it's time to work with pink again. And brown. And lots of other colors I am finding in my box of cut strips left from other projects.

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Karen S Musgrave has an interesting blog that I follow. I also had recently bought and was reading Rayna Gillman's new book Create Your Own Free-Form Quilts: A Stress-Free Journey to Original Design. So when Karen issued a challenge using some very old/outdated fabric that she would supply, it seemed like a fun thing to participate in--even though I was far from attracted to the fabric. I signed up, and when the fabric arrived, I liked it even less than the picture, but hey, it's a challenge! Here is what the fabric looks like:

Challenge fabric

The rules are that the challenge fabric must show on the front of the piece; any changes--dye, paint, stamping, etc., are permitted; must use Rayna's book as inspiration; deadline to finish is March 1; we must take pictures along the way. I began sewing strip-sets of pieces already cut just to get something started. Wish me luck!

Friday, January 13, 2012

I have completed another Leaf Study piece, using Heide Stoll-Weber's hand-dyed cotton sateen as the background. Inspiration for this piece was a photo I took in November 2009 of some beautiful philodendron leaves in the atrium of Ochsner Hospital in New Orleans. The quilting in the background is of the meander/puzzle type, with a suggestion of more philodendron leaves in the upper portion.

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